Jump: T-Mobile Unveils Twice-Yearly Upgrades

But subscribers will have to pay an extra monthly fee

With smartphones with ever more dazzling features coming onto the market almost every day, consumers often feel stifled by the long periods most wireless carriers make them wait until they can upgrade their phones.

The nation’s fourth largest carrier has a plan to change that. T-Mobile (TMUS) is introducing a “Jump” plan that will allow subscribers to upgrade their devices twice a year, so long as they pay a $10 monthly fee. Under the new plan, remaining installment payments on customers’ existing phones will be waived. Subscribers will also get insurance to replace missing or damaged phones, the Associated Press notes.

T-Mobile’s new plan builds on its “uncarrier” plans, introduced earlier this year. Under those plans, subscribers are not subject to two-year contracts and pay back the price of their smartphones with monthly installments.

The company ran into some trouble with the plans when the attorney general of Washington state claimed that advertising for the plans failed to make clear that subscribers who dropped their service plans would have to pay the remaining balance on their mobile devices. T-Mobile subsequently offered refunds.

Last month, the nation’s second largest wireless carrier, AT&T (T) said it was extending the time subscribers had to wait to upgrade their phones from 20 months to 24 months.